아래는 영국 The Guardian의 2025년 10월 20일자 기사입니다.
헬렌 본은 2021년에 악성중피종을 진단 받았는데 나이는 38세였습니다. 석면질환은 수십년 전 중공업에서 일한 남자들에게만 해당되는 줄 알았는데 내가 30대에 진단 받았다는 사실은 굉장이 충격이었다, 라고 말합니다. 그녀는 애들이 성장하는 모습을 보고 싶어 했으나 불행히도 진단 후 3년째인 2024년 11월에 사망했습니다.
대부분의 사람들은 '석면'이라는 단어는 오래된 옛날을 떠올리게 합니다. 먼지 많은 빅토리아 시대의 공장, 세계1~2차 세계대전간의 조선소, 전후 건설 현장 등이죠. 하지만, 영국은 1999년에서야 석면 사용을 금지하였습니다. 환경보건국(HSE)에 따르면 매년 5천명이 사망하고 있으나, 석면사용금지 시민단체들은 그 수치는 꽤나 과소 평가이며 실제는 2만명에 가깝다고 합니다. 악성중피종은 잠복기가 15~40년인데 헬렌 본은 학교나 대학에서 노출되었을 것으로 추정합니다.
본은 석면질환 사망의 '3차 파고(third wave)' 희생자로 볼 수 있습니다. 1차는 석면광산이나 공장에 일했던 노동자이며, 2차는 조선소나 철도, 건설 현장 등 석면을 취급하거나 간접 노출된 노동자, 3차는 석면함유 물질이 노후화되거나 파손되어 대기중에 비산된 석면에 노출된 일반인입니다. 1~2차는 끔찍한 직업적 재난이라면, 3차는 광범위 환경 및 인프라 재앙입니다.
(이하 생략)
기사 하단부에는 우리나라 교육부의 2027년까지 학교 석면제거 완료에 대한 내용도 언급되어 있습니다.
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Helen Bone was diagnosed with an asbestos-related cancer in 2021. She was 38. The type of cancer, mesothelioma, is incurable; the best prognosis is a few years, though most people don’t get that long. “You always think of asbestos as a disease from decades ago – affecting men who worked in heavy industry – so to be diagnosed in my 30s is shocking,” she told the Northern Echo in 2022. “I want to see my children grow up but now I have to come to terms with the thought that this might not happen.” Sadly, Bone passed away in November last year, just three years after her diagnosis.
For most people, the word “asbestos” will evoke previous eras: dusty Victorian and Edwardian factories; the shipyards of the interwar period; postwar building sites. Yet asbestos was not banned in the UK until 1999. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), it still kills around 5,000 people every year. Many anti-asbestos campaigners believe that this figure is a serious underestimate, and that the real total is closer to 20,000. Mesothelioma has a long latency period: anything from 15 to 40 years. Helen Bone could have been exposed to asbestos at school, at the college where she studied to become a critical care practitioner, or at the two hospitals where she later worked.
Bone is part of what’s known as the third wave of asbestos deaths. The first wave was those who worked directly with asbestos in mines and factories. The second wave was those who worked with or near the material: shipyard and rail workers, builders and other tradespeople, engineers. The third wave comprises all those who have been exposed as asbestos-containing materials deteriorate or are disturbed, releasing millions of fibres into the air, unseen. If the first and second waves constitute a horrific occupational disaster, then the third wave is a vast environmental and infrastructural catastrophe.
Around 6m tonnes of asbestos were imported into Britain between 1870 and 1999. It remained mostly hidden behind walls and ceilings, laid into cement roofs and pipes, and was woven through textiles. British companies used two especially harmful types: crocidolite and amosite, which were mined in South Africa. British companies, Cape plc and Turner & Newall chief among them, relied on British imperial domination and, later, apartheid, to keep mining costs low and profits high.
Thanks to the efforts of anti-asbestos campaigners and trade unionists, the use of asbestos declined significantly in the 1980s and 90s, before it was finally banned in 1999. But the ban was not accompanied by a coordinated removal programme. The start of the new millennium should have been the moment for a reckoning with asbestos. Instead, the material receded from view, its prohibition giving the impression that it was a problem solved. A lot of asbestos has been removed over the past 25 years. There are several decent companies that observe the law and work safely. There are also plenty of cowboy outfits that cut corners and put their workers and the public at risk.
A lot of asbestos remains in place and is now far beyond its intended design life. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 operate on the basis that risk is low if the material is undamaged and left undisturbed. This policy of in situ management is bad in theory and worse in practice. A recent audit by the National Organisation of Asbestos Consultants and the Asbestos Testing and Consultancy Association found that “of 128,761 buildings … examined over a six-month period, 78% had asbestos,” and that “71% of the asbestos items recorded … were damaged”; 30% were in the highest risk category, requiring immediate removal.
The regulations place much of the onus on the “duty holder” who is responsible for monitoring asbestos-containing materials and for supplying information to building users in an asbestos management plan. Yet in many cases, rather than living documents, these plans are left to gather dust in a drawer. The regulations do not differentiate by the type of building, even though studies have shown that the risk of developing mesothelioma and lung cancer increases dramatically for those who are exposed when they are young. Nor is there any differentiation by the type of asbestos, even though it is known that amosite and crocidolite are particularly dangerous.
There are nations that have chosen to address this challenge. In 2016, the South Korean Ministry of Education ordered that asbestos be removed from all schools by 2027. The government has allocated 2.872 trillion won (£1.8bn) to the programme. The Australian Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency was founded in 2013 and is coordinating a multi-phase national strategic plan to eliminate future cases of asbestos-related disease in the country.
(이하 생략)
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It’s still killing people, and the government has yet to act: Britain’s hidden asbestos epidemic 
